


Don’t Be the One

by thelandofnothing



Series: there’s no walls to build here [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Co-Parenting, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Fights, Flashbacks, Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, Set 5 years after the events of Walls to Build, TW: past drug use and rehab, Weddings, mental health, past angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26302183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelandofnothing/pseuds/thelandofnothing
Summary: Theon had always felt like he and Robb were like parallel lines; never destined to meet but after years of healing and rebuilding, he finds himself thrown in the middle of happiness. The kind of happiness that the pain of his past threatens to eject.(a Walls to Build story - can be read as a stand-alone piece)
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Lyanna Mormont/Rickon Stark, Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Theon Greyjoy/Robb Stark
Series: there’s no walls to build here [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910932
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Don’t Be the One

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is set 5 years after the events of Walls to Build (my gendrya piece) but can be read without reading that first! This story will explore some parts of Theon and Robb's turbulent relationship in this universe. 
> 
> hope you guys enjoy!! 
> 
> story title: don't be the one - kllo

__

**_-April-_ **

_Theon fidgeted with the hem of his sweatshirt._

_Well, he supposed it was Robb’s sweatshirt, it didn’t have a rip or loose thread to its name, and it had only just begun to lose the scent of his aftershave._

_“Explain yourself,” Balon’s voice flooded the office._

_In front of him, his father had photos sprawled across the oak desk, snapshots of his desecrated privacy that had left so much shame on his hands. Pictures of him and Robb Stark; holding hands, kissing, sneaking out of bars at ungodly hours all with smiling faces. Had they been so foolish to think there weren’t vultures prying in the shadows with their cameras? Theon felt sick to his stomach at the thought, Robb and he had either been too high or drunk to remember that people were so obsessed with the inner workings of their lives._

_“What are you asking him to explain?” his sister’s voice cracked open the silence. “His gayness?”_

_He looked up from his boots and saw Asha circle the desk, peering down at the photos before whistling through her teeth._

_Balon hit his fist on the table._

_“I do not care who you mount in bed,” he spat, and Theon had to hold back a laugh. The thought of his father ever accepting that both his surviving offspring were not straight was a laughable affair. Plus, by using a word like ‘mount’, he was sure nobody in the vicinity could possibly take his father seriously. “The tabloids are ripping you apart. Do you know what that means for this family?”_

_Theon had no idea what it meant for his family, he hadn’t given them a lick of thought in the entire process of this dilemma, more worried about what it meant for Robb, what it meant for the Starks._

_“Things are different from the greenlands father,” Asha exclaimed, wiping the photos clear off the desk, by packing them back into the folders as if they never existed. Years of living in daydreams captured by mediocre and blurry paparazzi photos simply gone in a blink of an eye. “Must you scorn him; did he know that boy was engaged?”_

_Theon didn’t miss the way that his father looked at Asha, as if he had the time to consider her words, her interests, even her as a person. Theon might have yearned for that sort of validation, but he had learnt that higher expectations always came with a bitter consequence._

_Balon turned his hawk eyes to him again, scanning him and then the photos multiple times over before kissing his teeth._

_“Get out of my sight,” he spat, his gaze vicious and disgusted._

_Theon hesitated before he turned on his heel, suffocating from the weight on his chest._

_Once outside, he shakily tried to lift the lighter to the end of his smoke, but the iron winds rattled him and made his legs wobble._

_He truly was pathetic, wasn’t he?_

_In the corner of his eye, he saw Asha appear at his side, running her hands through her short-cropped, dark hair. She made everything seem so effortless and it infuriated him like nothing else._

_“You didn’t have to do that, you know?” he called out, his voice crackling from underuse._

_“I did, he’d rip you to shreds otherwise,” his sister stole a cigarette from his packet and reached for his lighter._

_She popped the fag in between her lips and cupped the butt, lighting it in one go before moving over to light his too._

_“You’re welcome,” she raised an eyebrow._

_“I didn’t ask for your help,” he grumbled._

_Asha made a face that he knew was one of pity. She had been the only person she told about Robb, only because she had blatantly walked in on the both of them fumbling around in his bedroom half-naked._

_“Have you called him?” she whispered, and he shook his head, over and over again as if he had a tic._

_The thought caused a chasm to split in his stomach and before he could control himself, he retched up his breakfast which had consisted of a couple of cigarettes and half a cup of coffee all against the pavement._

_“What a fuck you to dad, huh?” Asha laughed and patted his back as he leant his forearms on his knees, a thread of acidic saliva hanging from his open mouth. “Let it all out.”_

_“Piss off,” he said, choking on the bitter, foul taste of his mouth._

_His sister continued to smoke her cigarette, taking a moment to rub his back before he sat up, feeling his head spin._

_“He’ll be asking the Drowned God if he can abort me at twenty years,” he chuckled humourlessly, and Asha passed him a tissue to wipe his mouth with. “But he probably doesn’t have the time to spare the thought.”_

_She pressed her lips together._

_“Come on,” she held out her hand and all the sudden he was five years old holding his sister’s hand as they look for baby crabs in the rockpools surrounding Pyke. “Mum’s been wanting to see you.”_

_Theon felt as though he were six years old again, Asha’s outstretched hand amongst the crashing waves and jagged rocks, looking for sea stars in the rockpools and feeling the sand between his toes._

_He took it._

* * *

Theon felt the memory slip out of focus and he was landed in the bustle of coffee shop with Arya Stark in front of him.

“Hello, I’m talking to you dickface!” she said, waving her hand about in front of his eyes with her brows scrunched up.

“Yeah, yeah,” he rolled his eyes and decided he didn’t have the appetite for his croissant and black coffee anymore. “And why can’t Sansa organise the seating arrangement of her own wedding?” 

“Cause she’s already doing flowers, the catering, a dress fitting and checking on the RVSP’s. So unless you want her to have a stroke before her own wedding, you’re bloody helping. You’re literally the only one who knows who can’t sit together.”

“Oh Gods, imagine if Gendry was in charge of that,” Theon faux gasped.

“Yeah, he’d put Ramsey Bolton and Lyanna Mormont on the same table and get confused as to why he got stabbed in the jugular with a dessert fork halfway through the first dance,” she told him seriously. “Hypothetically speaking because the Boltons are cancelled, and not coming to Sansa’s wedding but still, imagine.” 

Some parts of Arya had changed since the last time he had seen her with the backpack that was bigger than her holding up her happy frame as she smiled her horsey smile before she boarded her plane for Braavos. Now, there wasn't a single thing that was horsey about her. 

“Thought you’d be getting married first,” he teased, and she scoffed. “Being the most domestic out of us all.”

“Domestic? Please. Sansa would never let me get married first, imagine the carnage,” she looked away distantly and he couldn’t help but agree.

“It’d be an absolute massacre,” he nodded his head. “Maybe Marg would hold her back. I’m surprised our sis hasn’t gone full bridezilla yet.”

“Oh there’s time for that, Jon reckons it’s when one of the bridesmaids’ dresses doesn’t fit. Maybe I should Macdonalds on the way home just to piss her off.”

Theon laughed because he knew that Arya would cause some sort of problem, intentional or unintentional.

“Gendry still pissed at you for taking up night shifts?” he asked as she sipped her coffee.

“Oh yeah,” she swallowed, looking up whilst trying to conceal half a laugh. “He’s _real_ broody, he’s been refusing to talk to me.”

“Doesn’t sound very funny,” Theon cocked his head, giving her judgemental stare and she looked away.

“It’s not, it’s been going on for too long. Every time I want to talk about it, we end up fighting,” she sighed, and he could see the dark circles under her eyes. “Making it a joke is literally my only coping mechanism at this point. The fight we had the other night made me seriously think he was going to break up with me.”

“You know he wouldn’t. Get Jon to give him a kick up the arse,” Theon offered, and she smiled.

“He’s more stubborn than Jon. He’s just sulking cause I didn’t tell him first which is not my fault because I jumped at the chance,” she grumbled and ran a hand down her face. “I’m just glad the night shifts are over and I’m working normal hours from next week.”

“Gotta communicate little wolf,” a voice called, and Theon looked up to see Robb staring down at them

“Hi love,” Theon moved over in the booth to let Robb sit down in the booth next to him. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Robb kissed his temple and he felt warmth spread throughout his body as if it were summer once again.

“Well, mum sent me out for errands, and I finished by noon so here I am.”

“Favourite child,” Arya grumbled under her breath, looking up from her phone.

“Well maybe if you didn’t have fights in the family home while mum is eavesdropping and secretly siding with your boyfriend…”

“Okay, can everyone throw shade at me _after_ Sansa’s wedding?” she groaned, picking up her phone as it lit up with a text.

“No can do, you’re basically feeding us ammunition,” Robb chuckled and thanked the waiter who brought him his latte.

Theon saw that Arya had begun frowning at her phone, sending off a few rapid texts.

“I should go, need to have a chat with you know who,” she said, half-heartedly, standing up tiredly as if talking to her boyfriend seemed like the last thing she wanted to do.

“Don’t die,” Theon offered pathetically.

“You’ll be fine, just be honest and open, he’ll appreciate that,” Robb added in his typical fashion. “And don’t slam the doors so hard, your place is a rental and doors aren’t cheap to replace.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes and picked her bag up. “I’ll look up if punching a hole in the wall is cheaper, I’ll see you both for dinner.”

Theon watched her exit the café, the phone still in hand as she disappeared into a throng of busy brunch-goers. Arya had voiced her discern for yuppies invading her old haunts from when she was in high school, but it was almost as if she were stranger amongst the Winterfell streets herself. 

“I’m worried about her,” Robb sighed, stirring his coffee. “I heard them fighting the other day and holy Mother…”

“They’ll sort it out,” Theon promised, putting a hand on his forearm. “They always do, Arya’s just not the best communicator and it pisses Gendry off to the max. Might be a Stark trait as far as I know.”

Robb simply just rolled his eyes, “Hilarious.”

“What I mean to say is let them sort out their shit and we’ll just give them some space in the meantime.”

Robb and him had never fought like that; raw and irrational, spitting in each other's faces with words so full of hate they stung. Robb and Theon had fought with half glances, empty voicemail boxes and awkward silences. 

But Theon distracted himself by admiring the way Robb sipped his latte, a speck of frothed milk landing on the corner of his mouth. 

“What’s up?” he asked, raising a brow.

Theon just shook his head and smiled, reaching forward and brushing away the spot of milk with his thumb.

**Author's Note:**

> chapter count may change
> 
> comments and kudos make a writer's day! thank you for all the support


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